7 Ways to Control Your Ego

You want to know the most common thing that gets in the way of reaching your personal success!? The answer is your ego. Your ego is responsible for seeking approval of others and what they may think if you fail. Your ego is there to constantly tell you what is lacking. Simply, the ego is not your friend.

Here are my 7 ways to control your ego and stop it from stopping you from reaching your goals!

1. Embrace “beginner’s mind”

When you start anything with a beginner’s mind in place you have no real expectations of what might happen. Starting something fresh, each day you’ll learn more and more and it will be impossible for the ego to rear its ugly head and tell you that you don’t know what you are doing (because you know you are just a beginner and learning a little each day).

2. Control only what you can

Most things in life we can’t control – you can’t control what other people will think about what you are doing or how much someone else has (jealousy). In fact, the ego loves to “try” to control these uncontrollable things – don’t waste your time. But the good news is that you can control things like your effort, how much time you commit to a goal – focus your power on those!

3. Get started

The quickest way to stop the ego from telling you that you can’t do something, is to get started and prove it wrong. Just sitting around and thinking is the perfect environment for the ego to rear its head. On the flip side, getting started and taking action makes it incredibly difficult for the ego to chime in.

4. Focus on the now

Our ego is all about the past and the future. It thrives on bringing up the past and telling you how you couldn’t do something before (so how can you do it now) and the future reactions of your friends and family talking about you negatively. Where it can’t live is the present moment. The present moment is the only thing that is real in our lives, focus your efforts there and you’ll be amazed at the successes you can achieve.

5. Stop storytelling

We love to get caught up in our story and how it may pan out. The problem is, it never turns out that way we imagine – which causes frustration. It’s ok to have end goals in mind, but the journey on getting there may look very different than how you imagine it. By focusing on the present moment, and not your story, you’ll be more primed to reach your goals.

6. Don’t compare yourself

This is one of the hardest things to do, I know. But the ego thrives on looking at what other people have and telling you what you don’t have, making you feel inferior. One of the biggest issues with comparing to other people is that we tend to compare only one aspect of someone’s life to our entire life. We look at our rich friend and are jealous of what he has, but don’t spend the time thinking about his problems – trust me, he has them. So instead of spending your time and energy focused on others, put the effort into yourself. If you want to compare yourself to anyone, make that person your previous self – so you can learn and grow.

7. Define your purpose

Once you are able to identify your true purpose in life, the ego starts to fade away into the background. That’s because you have a north star you are focusing on and you know that hurdles will always pop up on your way there. You don’t let them get to you down and you certainly don’t care what other people think about your path to fulfill your purpose. Live your purpose, eliminate your ego.

About the author: Eric is a co-founder at The Mindful Tech Lab where he focuses on creating self care technology to help millions of people around the world improve their body and mind. He is a strong proponent of positive psychology and enjoys reading, writing, and sharing the benefits to help others live their own best life.